It’s becoming very difficult to envision the Bruins suddenly becoming something different in the final 25 games of the regular season and somehow making an epic push for the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Instead, it was more of the mediocre same from a Bruins group in a 4-3 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights at TD Garden on Saturday afternoon where they blew a 3-1 lead, gave up another gut punch goal in the closing minutes of the second period and were outshot 11-6 by a hungry Golden Knights group in the final period. They gave up two power-play goals to Vegas, they took two penalties in the closing minutes of the third period that proved very damaging and they simply couldn’t take care of a break after getting a goal overturned on a goalie interference challenge late in the proceedings.
The bottom line was that they blew at least one point, and possibly two points, when both were very much within reach. It’s something they have already done a handful of times this season and it’s making their push for the Stanley Cup playoffs that much more difficult with just 25 games left in the regular season after the 4 Nations Faceoff break.
“When you put yourself in that position [of killing penalties] it gets difficult,” admitted Joe Sacco of the third-period troubles. “We get a break [on the goalie interference challenge]. We score on the power play and run into the goaltender [and it’s] the same thing. We have to kill that off after [the goal gets overturned]. That’s a huge momentum boost for us when they disallow the goal and we just have to do the job and get the kill. We should have gotten it done and we didn’t.”
The fact that the Golden Knights scored on the PP right after the first one was disallowed tells the casual observer that the Bruins simply couldn’t stop Jack Eichel and Vegas when they decided they wanted to score.
Perhaps the most damaging play in this loss, however, was Jeremy Swayman fumbling a puck on a Zach Whitecloud point shot that ended up trickling across the net when he futilely tried to fall on the puck in the crease.
Zach Whitecloud puts us back within one !#VegasBornpic.twitter.com/0bk2HWvgMM
— VegasHockeyFreak (@VGKHockeyFreak) February 8, 2025
In some ways, it was a fitting development in a pivotal game where Swayman again couldn’t rise to the occasion after his training camp holdout played a major role in derailing this Bruins team in the first few months of the regular season.
“I had a good angle on it, and what happened was I gloved it, and I had a motion going toward me. I think it slipped through and went past the goal line,” said Swayman.
It's perhaps encouraging on some level that the Bruins players continue to put on a brave, defiant face that there is still hope to turn things around in the final stretch run, but they are looking at being forced to now go 17-8-0 or better in their final 25 games in order to push for a playoff bid and hop over several rival teams from their current ninth place in the Eastern Conference.
It’s hard to envision that for this Black and Gold group, even if Swayman and the other core Bruins players still thinks they have it in them.
“I thought we did a good job managing their pushes. Even if we had breakdowns, we managed to get out of them alive,” said Swayman. “That’s something I think we can build on and use to our advantage is that even if things don’t go our way sometimes, when we do come out successful it’s something that we can build on and know that we can get away with it sometimes.
“It’s something we have to control and I have no doubt that this group will. We need to regroup and use this [4 Nations] break as a weapon, and really come back stronger and be ready for a push in these final 25 games. Every point matters. It’s a fight for playoffs. It’s an incredible position when you look at it and I think it’s something we can really rally around as a team while trying to catapult ourselves into playoff position, and a playoff berth.
“We have 25 more chances to turn things around and I think we will.”
Brad Marchand similarly sounded a hopeful tone like Swayman, but it also felt like there was some resignation in their voices that it’s going to be an uphill battle. It almost felt like the Bruins players were trying to convince themselves rather than truly believing in what they were saying.
“They pushed and we sat back a little bit. We knew that they would be better in the second and the third, and they were. We got caught sitting back a little bit and they will make you pay,” said Marchand, who scored his 20th goal of the season in defeat and reached that mark for the 14th time in his NHL career. “I think we can play with anybody. The differences in the games are very small margins, small details, and we just have to clean it up a little bit.
“But I think we can play with anybody and we’ve seen pretty much everybody at this point. We can play with anybody.”
If we’re being technical the Bruins played the Winnipeg Jets twice and were outscored 14-3 in those two games, so there’s at least one NHL team that they absolutely cannot play with this season. But at least the leaders are trying to put out a resilient tone in a final 25-game stretch that looks like it’s going to get away from them based on everything we’ve seen to this point this season.
ONE-TIMERS
*The 4 Nations Faceoff will be a welcome break for a player like Brad Marchand, who will go from a Bruins team struggling to make the grade to a veritable all-star hockey team full of the best players in the world. He’ll be playing with a couple of his Nova Scotian buddies, if Sidney Crosby is healthy enough to play, and he won’t have the pressure of being the captain shouldering all of the team responsibilities as it is with the Black and Gold.
There’s also the simple fact that the 36-year-old doesn’t know how many more times he’ll be putting on the Team Canada jersey as well, so he’s going to soak everything in with the 4 Nations tournament while participating with fellow Bruins Jeremy Swayman, Charlie McAvoy and Elias Lindholm.
“I’m just really looking forward to the opportunity. I’m very grateful to be there,” said Marchand. “You never if you ever get another opportunity to play for your country, so I’m really just looking forward to every moment.”
The word has been that ticket sales haven’t exactly been brisk for the NHL and NHLPA-constructed event, so it will be interesting to see how it all plays out with pretty much everybody involved praying for a US/Canada final game for the gold medal.